The real need is to create many worker cooperatives which are networked. Mondragon Cooperative Corporation is one such entity. You can lean about Mondragon at my website at this page: http://masallp.wetpaint.com/page/Mutual+Aid+Society,+Mondragon+and+More

When you finish, feel free to read the other many articles. If you want to, you can join MASA and add a page. Let me know and I will send you an invitation. My email is: jimmiller5417@yahoo.com.
Jim Millelr

Today, the popular media are misdefining sustainability in order to continue marketing a consumption-based way of living. The true challenge of sustainable development comes in the transition to a dynamic, yet steady state economy which requires a population and rate of consumption in harmony with the natural regenerative systems of the Earth.

I love people who say, “Do what you love and the money will follow.” That is such an easy, glib phrase. Meanwhile, in this current economy, who pays the rent, buys the food (or the seeds for the garden) and saves for emergencies (like old age)? “Work only 30 hours a week at what you like to do…” Great. Can you point me and others to the free food and housing that goes along with that? Going back to the old commune concept is okay, perhaps. We all tried that decades ago – and not many of those communes turned out to be very sustainable.

Instead of “Just Do It” approaches, how about something realistic that takes into account actual financial and human needs when making recommendations. If a person is working to support their family and, like most families in America, is just scraping by and frightened that a layoff or an illness will cost them their home – how does that person start “doing what they like – for 30 hours a week” and stay afloat at the same time? What do you have in mind?

It’s true that we need to be growing our own food, living closer to the Earth, and moving away from the self-destructive consumption-based economy. So, how do we do that – given what we’re facing right now?

“Don’t work more than maybe 30 hours per week. This not only allows for employment of more people, but it gives you time to work on yourself, to study, grow, explore, and self-actualize.”

The question of the day is how to achieve this. For most people, being overworked is not a matter of choice; it’s a matter of wage-slavery in complicated human social networks.

The average number of hours worked by people in the United States per week is about 53. Typically, when there’s an implication made that being overworked is a matter of personal choice, there’s somebody making the implication who is privileged – rather than merely free.

There’s the further point that many poor people are already partially free from the industrial system, living within an alternative economy of soup kitchens and stronger community ties. There’s almost nobody who doesn’t want to be free of the oppressive system. The biggest issue facing all of us who are working to live within an alternative, healthy and balanced, system, is to face the conundrum of privilege.

Dan Nissenbaum